Monthly Archives: October 2009

Wavecrest’s 13th Birthday

We’re Wavecrest Computing, a leading developer of Internet usage management products. Today is our thirteenth birthday. So we’re taking a moment to celebrate, look back, and reflect on some of our accomplishments over the years.

Since 1996, from our base in Melbourne, Florida, we have developed, marketed and supported a spectrum of innovative Internet monitoring and reporting solutions. Our products help all types of organizations manage their employees’ online activities and ensure compliance with acceptable use policies. Starting thirteen years ago with a single customer, our client base has grown to more than 3,000 organizations, many of them Fortune 500 companies and high profile government agencies.

We’re extremely proud of this. But it didn’t just ‘happen.’

The credit goes to an unusually talented and well-led team of development, sales and support people. They all work directly for Wavecrest; none are outsource or temporary employees. For years these dedicated men and women have made sure that we consistently deliver the products and services that our customers need to meet the many dynamic challenges associated with use of the Internet in the workplace.

And those challenges have certainly evolved over the years. Examples include the very real and seriously increasing risks of productivity losses, bandwidth drains, legal liability, and network security threats. And as the Internet grew and the challenges escalated, we have kept pace every step of the way.

Our first product— a basic software application called ProxyReporter—read and analyzed employers’ outbound Web logs. From that data, it then produced reports that helped management and IT monitor employees’ use of Web access.

Then, as the Internet became more sophisticated, we went on to develop a series of increasingly robust Web-use monitoring and filtering products designed to suit a variety of customers and network infrastructures. Our monitoring products now include Cyfin Reporter—a highly sophisticated and scalable logfile analyzer/reporter—and Cyfin Proxy, a standalone Web proxy/monitor/reporter. Our combination filtering/reporting products include CyBlock for ISA—a combination filter/reporter system for use with Microsoft ISA products—and CyBlock Proxy, a standalone proxy/filter/reporting solution.

Our latest innovation is CyBlock Appliance, a hardware based Internet-usage management device. Designed to monitor and help control use of all Internet protocols, CyBlock Appliance is a standalone proxy, monitor, filter and reporter.

Of particular interest, in recent years, we have upgraded all of these products to deal with emerging issues associated with a variety of Web 2.0 advances such as social networking. At the same time we have been busy incorporating new features such as protocol filtering and trend reporting.

Through the years our products have been well received and proven to be highly reliable and cost-effective, and we back them all with a 90-day money-back guarantee.

As proud as we are of our products, we take equal pride in our support services. When customers call, they talk to a real person—here in America—and they get personalized attention. Our support personnel, all of whom have been with us for years, know that customer satisfaction is key to the company’s (and their own) success. And as a result of their responsiveness and professionalism, they have received literally hundreds of kudos and compliments over the years.

So, in sum, we have much to celebrate and be proud of.

Happy Birthday, Wavecrest!

Managing Groups and IDs in CyBlock and Cyfin

There are two options for managing your Groups and IDs in Cyfin or CyBlock.  You can manage them either “Inside the Product” or “Outside the Product.”

By choosing to manage your Groups and IDs “Inside the Product,”  it means exactly that.  You can manually add, delete and move Groups and IDs in the product.  If you import your Groups and IDs from Active Directory or a text file, each time your Groups and IDs are imported either manually or scheduled, only NEW Groups and IDs will import.  The new Groups and IDs that are imported will be based on your configuration setup in the Active Directory Setup wizard.  Your existing Groups and IDs will not be modified, which means if a user left or moved departments, he/she will have to be deleted or moved in the product.  If you want to have users in the VIP group, you must use the “Inside the Product” option.

If you select to manage your Groups and IDs “Outside the Product,” then you will be only managing and making changes to your Groups and IDs at the directory source.  Each time Groups and IDs are imported, whether manually or scheduled from Active Directory or a text file, all Groups and IDs will be updated to identically match that configuration. Typically this option is not used because the directory source is grouped according to your network setup and not according to how you will want to apply Web-use policies.